"Three Strikes and You're Out" - Action to Tackle Alcohol Crime

Members of the licensed trade in Brighton & Hove city centre are coming together to say "enough is enough" when it comes to alcohol related violence and anti social behaviour.

A new scheme, launched on Tuesday 1st November, introduced an exclusion notice scheme to ban those who persistently cause trouble in the West Street and surrounding areas of Brighton from entering any of the licensed venues.

The new scheme follows Sussex Police's "Enough" campaign, which was launched by the Chief Constable Ken Jones to target yob crime and its causes.

On the first offence, trouble makers will be issued with yellow cards to warn them about their behaviour and their details will be passed to the Business Forum's Business Crime Reduction Partnership (BCRP). If the person offends for a second and third time and are issued with yellow cards, this will result in an exclusion notice being served together with a ban from all licensed premises which are members of the scheme. Offenders will be captured on CCTV and their photographs circulated to all of the participating venues to ensure the scheme's success. Police Community Support Officers, licensees, door supervisors and police officers who work in the area will be able to issue the cards. Any breach of the exclusion notice will be referred to the City's Anti Social Behaviour Team for consideration of an Anti Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) which could result in a prison sentence of up to five years and/or a fine.

Terry Davies, of the Business Crime Reduction Partnership, said: " The BCRP has a very successful exclusion notice scheme operating across 300 members which has proved very useful in steering offenders into rehabilitation. It has the support of the courts and anyone breaching the notice is deemed to have committed an anti-social act.

"This new yellow card scheme will be available to our 100 members who are licensees and will assist to identify offenders who are involved in mainly violent crime.

"Proflific offenders will be identified and could find themselves with ASBOs and potentially five years in prison if they don't rationallise their use of alcohol and curb their violent behaviour."

For further information on the scheme click on the link below or contact Terry Davies on 01273 733 393.